Coach’s Take: Iowa Cornsharks Select 17U (Part I)
It’s August, that means live action on the hardwood slows down, but our coverage of Iowa high schools hoops remains active. The grassroots season recently wrapped up, and we’re going to spend the month re-capping what went down by talking to some of the most successful team’s coaches, and getting their take on players that suited up for them all spring and summer.
We continue our “Coach’s Take” series with John Kubrack, head coach of the well-oiled Cornsharks 17U unit. There was a little bit of everything on this squad, and plenty of college prospects. Below, Kubrak gives his detailed analysis of his 17U unit.
Iowa Cornsharks Select 17U coach John Kubrack talks…
Mason Storey, 6’1 G (Bondurant-Farrar)
What he brought to the table was just a fantastic attitude. He never, ever really got down on his teammates, never got down on himself, and he just competed throughout the whole game, throughout the entire season. And he really developed into a knockdown shooter. He came in as a good shooter, but lacked the confidence initially. And once we got him into the right system, in terms of him getting a lot of catch-and-shoot opportunities, he really started becoming a knockdown shooter. After he started learning about his shooting ability, opponents had to close out more, which then proved to show exactly what we worked on, his ripping and going and having a pull-up jump-shot, which he really showed a lot this year. But the most underrated thing about his game, was his defense, he competed constantly and he never let up and he was a huge asset on the defensive end.”
Logan Peters, 6’3 G (South Hamilton)
“He’s something special. He’s one of my favorite guys that I’ve had the privilege to coach, just because of his attitude; he’s a stand-up guy and he’s very, very respectful. He’s a multi-sport guy, basketball and track, and he’s picked up some big-time offers for track; Iowa State, I believe Iowa and UNI. He’s going to be scheduling visits to University of Texas, Tulsa, Illinois and Minnesota in the coming weeks. But let’s get back to the basketball aspect. He came in very underrated in Iowa at the point guard position. But his left and his size is something that’s very deceptive. Because of his left, he can get to the rim at will and use that to score in traffic around people. But the two biggest thing about his game is his passing ability, he sees the score extremely well. And he’s going to be a fantastic point guard in college if he chooses to play college basketball. And then his defense, I heard from some coaches over the years, that the one thing Logan really needs to improve on is his defense, and he did. His length and his size are tremendous helps on the defensive end. He can get his hand in the passing lane to break up passes and just on-ball defense with his left, he can get some steals and really disrupt a lot of shots, so that really helped us. And defense is really what we banked on with the Cornsharks.”
Ben Heeren, 6’6 SF (Ogden)
“He’s a 6’6 forward that can play the three and the four. He’s got to work on quickness to be a better wing, but that length, I believe he has a 6’8 wing-span, is tremendous. His ability to guard multiple positions is huge for us. We could really utilize a lot of different lineups and Ben was key for that, especially on the defensive end with his length. One of the more underrated things about him is his unselfishness on the offensive end. If he had a double coming in the post or on the wing, he had the size, length and ability to see a cutting man to get him the pass. He really just did everything to help the team; if he wasn’t scoring, he was rebounding, if he wasn’t rebounding then he was setting great screens. So his unselfishness was something that’s second to none. And he could go on and be a fantastic player fro any organization, because he has that great unselfishness about him.”
Will Tunrer, 6′ PG (Gilbert)
“Will Turner has played with the Cornsharks for the last couple of years, but he had the great opportunity for joining that Kingdom Hoops squad. And I thought that was a great opportunity for him and did really, really well for them. Will is a top quality point guard here in Iowa. He can play defense really well, he plays really hard; he knows how to get into the passing lanes and knows how to play help defense. He can rebound well from the guard spot. But offensively is where he can be most effective for any team, because he can see the floor extremely well. He’s very patient with the basketball, he can take care of it. And if the opponent is up on him, then he can blow by them with a dribble move. His ability to see the floor is second to none for a point guard. And then if he’s off the basketball, he can shoot it with the best of them; catching and shooting, he can do that extremely well. But the best part of his game is seeing the floor on the offensive end, and just driving to the basket, he can really score it that way.”